Jonathan Lethem - The Fortress of Solitude

“I’m ashamed of myself,” said my father.

The applause grew. Buddy Green shot upright from his chair and led the clapping. Only Pflug refused the consensus, turning in his chair.

“I’ve wasted my life.”

This was the last thing I made out before my father was drowned in the ovation. A two-way masochism was at work here, made possible by the total insularity of the gathering. The bohemian demimonde , as Abraham called it. My father was their pet heretic, their designated griever for lost or abandoned possibility. The way he brandished his failure thrilled this crowd, and they’d obviously known it was coming. By accepting his contempt like a lash on their backs, the Elk Lodge of ForbiddenCon 7 could feel ratified in their unworthy worthiness, their good sense of humor about themselves and their chosen deficiencies.

And yet I felt his not entirely withheld affection too. Through his eyes I could even share it. I thought of my namesake’s “Chimes of Freedom”- tolling for the aching whose wounds cannot be nursed, for the countless confused accused misused strung-out ones and worse, and for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe! Certainly I’d witnessed gatherings of rock critics or college-radio DJs, on panels at the South by Southwest conference or the CMJ, which were no less self-congratulatorily marginal. Only the costumes were different. I flashed on a vision of a world dotted with conferences, convocations, and “Cons” of all types, each an engine for converting feelings of inferiority and self-loathing into their opposites.

The panel was over. Another man had made his way to the front and taken the left-hand microphone from Sidney Blumlein. Now he tapped it repeatedly to get our attention. The new arrival was as eccentrically dressed as anyone in the room, but to an entirely different effect. His clean blue pinstripe shirt with white collar and red bow tie, natty mustache and slicked hair-all suggested a Republican senator who’d run a calculatedly old-timey campaign bankrolled by dark and secretive private interests. His voice was incredibly loud.

“This is my first chance to welcome you to ForbiddenCon 7,” he barked. “What a beginning, hey? Mr. Ebdus is too modest so I’ll remind you myself, we have the privilege of a special screening of a portion of his film, tomorrow at ten in Wyoming Ballroom B. Really, don’t miss this, it’s a rare opportunity.”

“Him,” whispered Francesca. She tugged my arm. “He loves your father.”

It’s you who loves him, I thought but didn’t say. You’re projecting, Francesca, you see it everywhere. Seated beside her, the Cumulus of Love, I felt enveloped in perfume and emotion. Nevertheless, I contemplated this bow-tied man at the microphone, the one who stirred my father’s girlfriend to such a peculiar excitement.

“One more big hand, ladies and gentlemen, for our artist guest of honor, Abe Ebdus!”

It was my first glimpse of the man Francesca had called Zelmo the Chair . The important lawyer. An unlikely emissary for secrets pertaining to my whole existence, but he had a few.

The restaurant, Bongiorno’s, was bad and didn’t know it. Everything was presented with a passive-aggressive flourish, as though we probably weren’t savvy enough to appreciate the oregano-heavy garlic bread, the individual bowls for olive pits, the starched napkins stuffed into our wineglasses, or the waiter’s strained enunciation of a long list of specials. Zelmo Swift seized control of the wine list and addressed everyone by name, making sure we took the whole episode personally. “This is on me, not ForbiddenCon,” he stressed. “They wouldn’t know food if it bit them on the ass. They’re happy with that crap in the hotel. I know how gruesome that whole scene can get, so I always try to take the guests out once.”

“Nice,” I lied. At the table Zelmo still barked, his voice shockingly large. And he was master of the sudden conversational stop which demands tribute, his whole face and chest near to bursting with his readiness to resume once he’d been endorsed with a No kidding? or You devil, you!

“Dinner and real conversation,” he said now. “Real life . That hotel is full of mummies . God love ’em.”

Yes, and aren’t you the King of the Mummies? I wanted to ask. But I understood it was precisely Zelmo’s superiority to the gathering at the Marriott that our candlelit dinner was meant to authenticate.

“Also, I knew Madame Cassini would appreciate the best Italian food in southern California.”

Francesca, seated to Zelmo’s right, twinkled at the flattery. I was pretty sure her Italian heritage went not much deeper than knowing the difference between a Neapolitan slice and a Sicilian square in the pizzerias of outermost Brooklyn. But then I was pretty sure this wouldn’t be the best Italian food in southern California. Maybe in Anaheim.

Zelmo’s costume and manner had initially disguised the fact that he was, like me, and like Jared Orthman, in his thirties. It was the second time in a long day I’d been forced to see that my dress and affect, contrasted with peers in other professions, was less that of a grown, employed man than of a gas-station attendant or homeless person. The scruffy credibility my gear signified in my native habitat was lost on the Jareds and Zelmos, my antique wire-frame glasses only suggesting I couldn’t afford contacts. Los Angeles held this lesson around every corner, I suspected. Berkeley, still in its dream bubble of the sixties, never did.

The wine arrived, and Zelmo tasted it. “That’s the one,” he proclaimed. Then he confided in me specially: “You’ll love this.” Apparently the son wouldn’t be allowed to float in a funk through the meal. I required winning over.

My father sat beside me, separated from Zelmo by Francesca. Inserted between Zelmo and myself sat Zelmo’s date, Leslie Cunningham. That Leslie in her gray suit perfectly resembled an actress playing a legal intern on a certain television show didn’t prevent Zelmo’s announcing that she actually was a legal intern, one who worked in Zelmo’s firm. At Bongiorno’s we were past irony’s county line. I didn’t trouble myself to wonder what nestled behind the trim tailoring; I refused to desire Zelmo’s woman. In Berkeley I wouldn’t have glanced at her, I told myself. She’d have been a bank teller, an office manager, just another style-deaf California blonde. I also didn’t trouble wondering what she was doing on Zelmo’s arm, figuring the best things in life are free , but, as well, you can leave that to the birds and bees .

The women on either side of Zelmo bubbled along on his stream. My father sat in grave silence. I suppose we made two of a kind, only he’d earned his supper by two decades of service to the field . I was expected to at least act impressed and grateful. It was Abraham’s trademark, I’d learned at the panel, that he wouldn’t.

The sommelier filled our glasses. I had mine to my lips when Zelmo said: “A toast.”

“To you!” said Francesca. “Your generosity!”

Zelmo shook his head. “ I have a toast. When I invited Abe to be ForbiddenCon 7’s artist guest of honor, I could have hoped the man would be as wonderful as his work. He is. But how could I have known he’d bring along a beautiful, magical lady! Francesca and Abraham, your story touches me. To have found one another, so late in life.” Zelmo was nearly bellowing by the time he raised his glass to the table’s center. “ To the human heart! ” Diners at other tables glanced to see what the matter was.

We clinked, a plate of fried calamari was set down, and the celebrated couple fell to some low squabbling. Zelmo put his arm across Leslie Cunningham’s shoulders and leaned to face me. “So how was it growing up in the home of the great man?”